The rest of the school week flies by with nothing interesting happening. No one's approached me, but no one's outright rejected me either. Sure, backs turn when the blank kid approaches, but nothing too forward. My English teacher hands me a huge stack of extra books to read each week, something that I'm increasingly grateful for. After my first day of school, Jenna really hasn't talked to me again. She's grown more and more withdrawn to the point where even Alex playing outrageous rap music in the car doesn't bother her.
After school on Friday, Karen cautiously approaches me in her work clothes. "How has school been going? Made any friends?" She sets a plate of celery on the counter even though she knows we'll all ignore it. "I think you've been adjusting well."
"I'm worried about Jenna," is all I manage to stab out.
"Oh, honey, don't. She goes through funks. We've had her since she was thirteen, and this often happens." She sighs and leans her elbow against the counter. "One minute she'll be ecstatic, the next, I'm afraid that someone sucked all the life out of her with a vacuum."
Is she bipolar? It's crossed my mind lately. I wouldn't say it's my fault that I look at everyone as a medical case. It sort of comes with being raised by nurses. "What exactly happened with her biological family?"
A dark storm cloud rushes to cover Karen's face. "If you're going to know, it's coming from her. I'm not even sure if I would be able to force the words from my mouth." That's reassuring. I raise my hands to ask more questions, but she cuts me off. "Just go do your homework and let me worry about her. She's not your problem."
As I reluctantly trudge for the stairs, I literally collide with Alex. "What's your problem, man?" He shoves past me, sprinting down the hall to his room. Karen just looks at me with a calculating stare, trying to decipher everything I'm thinking with mere sight. With a small wave, I run downstairs before her icy eyes can burn me.
After ten minutes of attacking my math homework, I receive an incoming request to video chat from Nancy, my nurse. I literally have to force myself to answer it, setting my phone up so I can sign. Her aging face floods the screen, her cap slightly askew.
"John! It's so nice to see you!" The words are muffled and I motion for her to remove her mask.
"It's good to see you too." My eyes travel back to my waiting homework. It would be so easy to use it as an excuse, to get myself out of this. I want to distance myself from the asylum, and it's impossible with her doting on me even though I'm out of her care. She's not my social worker. Why does she insist upon keeping in contact?
Nancy doesn't waste any time and dives right in. "I wanted to tell you that Miss Josephine is responding positively to treatments. Not physically, but mentally. She even asked about you."
That's enough to make the blood in my veins freeze. "She did? How do you know?" I don't let myself dwell on it. Nancy doesn't know what she's talking about.
"You think I'm annoying with how much I keep tabs on you? She's got it ten times worse, honey." She winks despite the fact I can hear something crash right behind her. "Don't worry about that. Just Matthew."
Matthew. The person who bobby pins his greasy bangs away from his face, the person who used to be my roommate until he took a liking to trying to kill me. "How's he doing?"
"Don't worry about him. I know you a little too well to get away with that," she scolds gently. "How have you adjusted? Is the family okay?"
My feet tap impatiently under the desk, yearning to quit giving reports. For once in my life, I don't want to have to tell someone how I'm feeling. "They're great. The girl is Deaf--she can hear, but she's adopted the culture and uses ASL. It's nice at home, but she's a senior and I feel bad talking to her doing the school day. Then the boy's a whole different story. He's already decided he hates me, but there's nothing I can do about that."
Nancy nods slowly, jotting something down. A flicker of anger sparks up in my stomach. "No. You don't get to do that anymore, Nancy. Don't record anything I say." I clench my jaw, forcing myself to not end this call right now.
She isn't fazed by my anger. Any hurricane I could create would be a draining bathtub compared to anything else she's seen. "I need to make sure that this family is a good place for you. I'm not consciously dismissed from that place yet. Do you understand?"
I don't. But I guess I never will.
We finish the call and I hang up as quickly as possible. Just seeing her face, hearing the noises taking place behind her, is enough to drive me crazy. I can practically smell the disinfectant too-clean scent of the hospital. Never again do I want to be there, never again do I want to remember anything that I witnessed.
I don't realize how loud I'm being until Jenna's behind me, kicking my chair as hard as she can to the point that it topples over. "What's your problem?" I stare up at her in disgust, my head throbbing from smacking the wall.
Her eyes are wide, hair hanging over her face, hands by her sides shaking. "I think that's my line, freak!" She stoops down to fetch the math book I must've thrown. When did that even happen? I need to go back. I'm not ready for this yet. They'll take me, right? Maybe I can see her again. Maybe I can get her to stop.
Jenna's hands still quake as she moves to pick up everything I threw, one thing at a time. "Don't ever do that again."
I slump against the wall, a knot already forming on the back of my head. Just dejectedly watching her stoop countless times to pick up my mess is excruciating. "It's not exactly within my realm of control."
She takes her sweet time lining up the edges of my books, making sure they're perfect before even looking at me. "I hate that. I don't think you understand how impossible it was to force myself into this room, to force myself near you when you were having that episode."
"I haven't had one since I was twelve," I admit, bitterness resonating throughout me. "I wasn't prepared."
Shuddering, she pulls out the chair and sits, her posture rigid. "It just feels too close to home."
What does that mean? I'm dying for her to quit speaking in riddles, to make a clear statement that I won't have to dissect. I don't want to know too much about another girl that'll just disappear in a few months. It's too hard to make a friend when your only one was forced into leaving. "You can go now."
"No." Finally, she collapses, her head in her hands. "It's not that easy. I know that you were raised in that sheltered little program all your life, but that's not how the real world works. You have a psychotic episode, you own up to it. You can't just slink to your room, ignore everyone, take a few more pills, and whine to your personal nurse the next day."
What is she talking about? If I ever had a "psychotic episode" it earned me being strapped to a bed that night. Why would I ever tell a nurse about something like that? I would pay for it because it would point to taking steps back in my improvement. Heaven forbid. "I think you have a warped view of my childhood home," I finally say.
Her eyes flare up, unadulterated rage hiding behind her perfectly placid facial features. "What do you think I did in mine? Bake brownies and climb trees?" Her countenance is so empty, staring numbly past me like something's fixing her attention far beyond. I don't think she's taken a breath in hours.
"I don't know anything about your home," I admit, my hands small, as if they're attempting to whisper.
Her head jerks back a little bit like she forced her brain to reboot. "You don't want to."
"Did you live there right up until moving here?" I try to not pry, only asking for surface details. I don't know why I'm bothering; she won't tell me anything regardless.
"Yeah, but I lived at a Deaf scool. For seventy-three days." Her chest concaves slightly, her eyes still vacant and glazed over.
"That must have been good. It would've been nice to go to an actual school, especially with people like you. I wasn't lucky enough, I was just locked away with all of these criminals, invalids, and--" I'm cut off by her ragged expression like she's a fish and I just thrust her upon land.
The horrified, ghastly set of her mouth is almost enough to give me a glimpse of why she's here and won't tell me anything. "No. That place was an infernal nightmare that took so many things from me it had no right to take." Her eyes lock on mine, the weight of her stare weighing on me like a fifty pound weight.
There's nothing to say. In that moment, we understand each other perfectly for once. With a silent nod, she stands up, straightens her skirt, and leaves. Normally she carries herself with impeccable pride, her head held high. But now, each step is timid, her neck held low in submission.
~~~
I watch Josephine step away, each step measured and calculated. Her left fingers absentmindedly scratch against her right wrist, always yearning to gouge out what her body refuses to do.
"That girl carries the weight of Atlas and all of his burden as well," I hear someone say from behind me. I turn to find a man I've never seen before. His voice is craggly and wizened despite his youthful appearance. A patchy brown stubble coats his jaw, his eyes haunted and glazed by something unseen. "Reminds me of Veronica."
He moves closer, his steps jarring like his knees are pillars instead of joints. "Mind if I sit?" He points to the seat next to me and sinks into it before I can say anything. "I've seen a lot of damaged girls before, but not many that carry it on their sleeves like that."
I nod slowly, watching her as she bends over to take her cup of medicine from a nurse. Her spine protrudes through the starchy fabric of her uniform pair of scrubs. The man continues, his voice growing less gravely as if it just hasn't been used in a long time. "She carries herself as if she's afraid she'll combust, like if she steps in the wrong place the entire universe will blow up." He pauses, taking in a shaky breath. "Those landmine girls are dangerous."
His hard eyes rest on mine, examining my face now. "Wanna know why I'm here?"
I'm not sure if I actually do, but I find myself nodding.
"It was a simple thing, really. Kill the people, make it look like a suicide. It's the oldest trick in the book, always works." He grins, but it's not malicious, more reminiscent. But who smiles fondly when thinking of a murder that lands you locked up? "We would've been fine if not for Veronica. They say that poison is a woman's weapon. No blood, clean, done, no evidence. Right? Let's just say that she didn't cover her tracks like I asked her to." He's still grinning, but his eyes grow dead.
"What happened to her?" I find myself mouthing.
His gaze leaves my face to look back out the window, the dead tree branches outside scraping in a rough morse code against the panes. "Killed herself. Such a selfish, unromantic, anticlimactic end, isn't it?" He chuckles, the sound echoing emptily throughout the room. "She got away with so much just to end it like that."
This story doesn't even phase me. I've been this close and closer to a murderer before. I've seen plenty of people that grin at the thought of their past transgressions. But it's his eyes that kill me. What makes a light blink out of a person like that?
"I'll let you go, kid," he dismisses me. "Don't let it get too late, okay?"
~~~
I find myself back upstairs playing the piano in a disoriented state, almost forgetting that this isn't my house and I don't have free rights. Songs fade in and out of each other, my fingers flying to convey the message. It's funny how they seem to be the only way for me to ever communicate what I'm thinking. I don't realize that there's a presence behind me until there's a voice cutting into my state of personal oblivion.
"You're mighty good at that. Teach yourself?" Dave almost gives me a heart attack, his deep and rich voice filling the room. "I'm just glad someone is using this old thing. Belonged to my mother, but no one ever plays it. Jen knows how, used to sing beautifully before we got her... I've seen videos. But she never does anymore."
Jen used to sing? That means she had spoken at one point. My mind starts to whirr. "I love music," is all I manage to sign. He nods in agreement but I can tell by his eyes that he has no idea what I'm saying.
"Ever thought of joining the baseball team? It might give you something to do with your time," he booms.
I just shake my head, my fingers itching to return to the keys. If I can only get my hands on a guitar, I'll be in paradise.
Dave grunts, tucking the newspaper under his arm. "Well. Not a sports man? You might like it if you try it. What about basketball? Maybe swimming?"
The thought about me being in a bathing suit in public is almost laughable. No one wants to see the stringbean that I am. "No, thank you," I mouth, turning back to the piano,
With a thump on on my back, he says, "Maybe you'll get Jen to play again. That'd be nice." I turn just in time to see his tightlipped, broken smile, which he shoves back before he even realizes it was on his face. "I know I can't talk with either of you very well, but I hope you feel welcome in our home. Never be afraid to ask Karen for anything."
--
At dinner that night, Jenna's eyes smolder at me from across the table the whole time, her eyelids lowering into slits. Karen prattles on about her book club, asking Alex questions about his studies in a desperate attempt to keep conversations going.
I pick at the lasagna on my plate, taking small bites in between staring back at Jenna. She's downed about eight glasses of water at this point, her eyes never once leaving mine. I'm beginning to think that she's just challenged me to a staring competition like we're third graders. As soon as Karen gives the blessed words that we may be dismissed, Jenna and I both sprint for the dishwasher in a mad dash to be the first one out of there. I don't know why it's a competition to see who can leave first, but it becomes one when she shoves me back.
"Oh no, you don't," I mouth and lock my arm around her waist, lifting her backward and shoving my dish into the slots, sauce still dripping. Without looking back, I sprint out of the kitchen and don't stop until I'm all the way down the hallway off the living room, heaving and listening to her laugh. She's laughing. Audibly laughing.
"When did that happen?" I lean against the wall as she approaches, a faux scowl eating up her face.
"When did what? When did you use your height as an unfair advantage?" The last time they measured me, I was six foot three inches. I would guess her to be a foot shorter than me, and she's right--I use it to my advantage. She scowls, attempting to fight the laughter still bubbling up inside of her. Karen's shrieking from the kitchen about how we made a mess, asking if that was "absolutely necessary" to do that.
I take a single step toward her. "You laughed. Out loud. For a blank girl, that's pretty impressive." I cock one eyebrow and glance down at her.
Jenna rolls her eyes. "I can make sounds, moron. It's just...words." She places her hand on her throat as if to feel the sentences stuck there. "They don't come out anymore."
With that, she wedges herself between me and the wall, darting into her room. With a shrug, I head back to my room in the basement. I'll let her do what she wants.